No abstract

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging methods with good spatial and contrast resolution are often too slow to follow the uptake of contrast agents with the desired temporal resolution. Imaging can be accelerated by skipping the acquisition of data normally taken with strong phase-encoding gradients, restricting acquisition to weak-gradient data only. If the usual procedure of substituting zeroes for the missing data is followed, blurring results. Substituting instead reference data taken before or well after contrast agent injection reduces this problem. Volunteer and patient images obtained by using such reference data show that imaging can be usefully accelerated severalfold. Cortical and medullary regions of interest and whole kidney regions were studied, and both gradient- and spin-echo images are shown. The method is believed to be compatible with other acceleration methods such as half-Fourier reconstruction and reading of more than one line of k space per excitation.

Recent technologic advances in computed tomography (CT)--enabling the nearly simultaneous acquisition of clinical images using two different x-ray energy spectra--have sparked renewed interest in dual-energy CT. By interrogating the unique characteristics of different materials at different x-ray energies, dual-energy CT can be used to provide quantitative information about tissue composition, overcoming the limitations of attenuation-based conventional single-energy CT imaging. In the past few years, intensive research efforts have been devoted to exploiting the unique and powerful opportunities of dual-energy CT for a variety of clinical applications. This has led to CT protocol modifications for radiation dose reduction, improved diagnostic performance for detection and characterization of diseases, as well as image quality optimization. In this review, the authors discuss the basic principles, instrumentation and design, examples of current clinical applications in the abdomen and pelvis, and future opportunities of dual-energy CT.